Handled cup



I Dec. 21, 1965 H. B. CUMMINGS HANDLED CUP Filed March 4, 1958 INVENTOR. OW RD B. CUMMINGS ATTORNEYS United States Patent 3,224,629 HANDLED CUP Howard B. Cummings, New Castle, Pa., assignor to Shenango Ceramics, Inc., a corporation of Delaware Filed Mar. 4, 1958, Ser. No. 719,044 1 Claim. (Cl. 220-94) This invention relates to improvements in dishware provided with protuberances, particularly handled cups. This invention applies equally well to other dishware provided with external projecting portions, such as, 'for example, the spouts and handles on tea and coffee pots, lifting knobs on lids, handles on bowls, pitchers, and serving dishes, and the like.

The problems posed to both manufacturers and users and solved by the present invention will be described and disclosed specifically with respect to cups, although it should be understood that the problems faced and solved apply generally to other tyes of ware having protuberances and appendages.

From the point of view of the users, handled cups are among the most troublesome articles of dishware. Not only are they relatively expensive but they are notoriously subject to breakage, both of the handle and the entire cup. What is seldom recognized in washing and storing cups is that, wholly apart from being subject to breakage when the handle is accidentally struck against a sink, rack, cupboard, or the like, the handle may be a major factor in breakage of the entire cup during stacking.

The handle contributes to breakage during stacking, not only because a stack of cups is generally unbalanced, but also because the portion Where the lower part of the handle attaches to the cup body is generally relatively massive and strong. When this relatively massive portion strikes the rim of the cup below it in a stack, it all too frequently results in breaking, cracking, or chipping the lower cup, the fracture or crack starting where the less massive rim is struck by the handle of the adjacent cup.

To overcome this general breakage problem, encountered in china or earthenware cups, molders of organic plastics have made cups of molded thermoset plastics. When such thermoset plastics are formulated to provide sufiicient high temperature resistance to withstand even domestic dishwashing temperature, however, the plastics are far from unbreakable and may be quite brittle, and, in any event, any minimization of breakage is more than offset by low scratch-resistance of surfaces contacted by food and permanent staining thereof by coffee and other foods. Thus, in many states and municipalities, adequate enforcement of reasonable health codes eliminates plastic ware from hotel and restaurant use. Thermo-plastic ware, of course, is suitable only for single throw-away use, being readily distorted if any attempt at adequate washing, let alone sterilization, is made.

Cups present additional problems to the manufacture of ceramic ware. First, the cup and handle must usually be designed to give an appearance of delicacy and yet provide adequate strength. The designing for strength is usually a compromise between the appearances of delicacy, on the one hand, and the minimization of massiveness at the point where the handle is joined to the cup body so that danger from breakage caused by such massiveness is lessened. Secondly, the handling of cups involves tedious and careful hand labor that in creases the cost of the ware. The cup bodies are usually separately formed, as by turning them from green ware dried to leather hardness. The handles are usually formed by casting, the cast ends of the handles being handtrimmed to fit the contours of the cup bodies to which they are to be attached by wet slip. Not only is there a high proportion of breakage in manipulating the cast green handles in the operation of handling, but the clay slips for the cup bodies and handles must be carefully formulated so that different shrinkages during subsequent firing Will not cause the handles to crack or pull away from the cup bodies. Another serious cost problem is that the handle, as a protuberance, prevents the use of mechanical decorating; lining, the location of decalcomanias, prints, and the like must usually be done by hand.

It is an object and advantage of this invention to eliminate or greatly minimize all the foregoing problems. Further this invention provides the further advantages of often serving as means for insulating the handle of the cup from the body when the cup is used for hot liquids.

Other objects and further advantages of this invention will be apparent from the following specification, claim and drawings, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a side elevation of a cup made according to this invention.

FIGURE 2 is an enlarged horizontal cross-section detail taken along the line 22 of FIGURE 1.

FIGURE 3 is a view similar to FIGURE 2, but showing modifications of this invention.

FIGURE 4 is a vertical cross-section detail taken along the line 4-4 of FIGURE 2, but showing another modification of this invention.

FIGURE 5 is another vertical cross-section detail similar to FIGURE 4, but showing a further modification of this invention.

In essence, this invention resides in attaching the handle to a cup body, not while the ware is in a green state, as has been the customary practice heretofore, but after the cup body (and handle, if a ceramic handle is to be used) as has been the customary practice heretofore, but after the is to be decorated, as is usually the case). Further, instead of employing a ceramic handle, the handle may be plastic, decorative wood, metal, and the like. The invention has been achieved through the discovery that certain thermosetting resinous material will firmly and securely adhere to glazed ceramic surfaces and, in suitable thicknesses, apparently serve as a relatively resilient shockabsorbing pad.

Referring to FIGURE 1, the cup body 10 is formed by turning, jiggering, casting or similar standard procedures for forming green ware. It is then fired in a bisque fire, glazed and fired in a glost fire, in the case of vitrified ware, or the green ware is glazed and fired in a single fire, as in the case of earthenware. When over-glaze decorations are applied, the body 10 is decorated and subjected to the usual dec fire. In the case of under-glaze decoration, the deooration is applied before glazing. In short, before the cup is handled, it is otherwise completely manufactured. The symmetrical shape of the cup body permits decoration by mechanical means, such as printing and lining machines. Thus, for example, in conventional cup manufacture, .a decorative band or line 11 on the outside of the cup body adjacent the rim had to be applied by hand since the band would have to be interrupted where the handle protrudes from the cup body. According to this invention, the band 11 may be continuous and applied by mechanical lining equipment before the handle is attached.

FIGURE 1 shows one of the various styles of handle 12 which may be attached to the glazed and decorated cup body 10. In the particular embodiment shown, the handle is provided with a base 13 by which the both ends of the bail 15 of the handle 12 are attached to the cup body 10. The handle 12 is, like the cup body 10, completely fired, glazed, and decorated before attachment to the cup body, if the handle is to be of ceramic material; as indicated in FIGURE 2, the inner surface of the base 13 is substantially concentric and is spaced conformation with the portion of the cup body to which it is attached.

As shown in FIGURES l and 2, the completed cup body 10 and handle 12 are attached to each other by a relatively elastic pad of curver, organic adhesive plastic material 14'which is adherent to the glase of the cup body 10 and the inner surface of the handle base 13. The pad 14 is preferably applied while the material is in an uncured viscous liquid state, either to the handle base or the cup body or to both prior to joining the handle to the boby. At the time of joining the handle and body, any

excess squeezed out by pressure between the body and handle is wiped away. To maintain the desired thickness of the pad 14, suitable positioning jigs may be employed if the material itself is not sufiiciently viscous to maintain the spacing of the handle and cup body while the pad is cured. Curing is usually carried on at elevated temperatures dictated by the formulation of the elastomer constituting the pad 14, although some formulations are self-curing at room temperatures. The thickness of the pad 14 is also determined to a degree by the formulation of the particular elastomer employed. The pad should be thick enough to permit some slight relative motion of the handle 12 with respect to the cup body 10, but not so thick as to permit substantial relative motion so as to give the cup handle a loose feel or to permit the pad to be substantially distorted. Thicknesses varying from One sixty-fourth to about three-sixteenths of an inch provide pads formed from most elastomers with the desired degree of limited relative motion of the handle with respect to the cup body. It is this slight relative motion permitted by the pad 14 which distinguishes cups made according to this invention from cups, such as repaired cups, in which the handle is simply glued on the cup body by a relatively inelastic organic cement.

There are various curable elastomers which provide the necessary characteristic of being substantially permanently adherent when cured between the cup body and handle and capable of withstanding the elevated temperatures and leaching encountered in Washing or warming, say up to about 300 F. Such elastomers may be thermosetting or thermoplastic. An example of a suitable thermosetting elastomer is as follows:

Example 1 'Filler (calcium carbonateCamel Carb) 200 Polymerization accelerator-diethylenetriamine 6 The resin in its monomeric or A-stage is thoroughly milled with the filler to provide a stiff, doughy mass. The polymerization accelerator r curing agent is then thoroughly dispersed in the mixed filler and resin just prior to application. After the handle has been attached to the cup body, the cups are then held in an oven for about a half hour at 250 F. until cure has been commenced. The times and temperatures of cure vary with the formulations employed. It is not necessary to effect complete cure in the ovens. Normal storage before use usually provides ample time for complete cure.

The following is an example of a suitable thermoplastic elastomer for the pa d 14.

Example 2 Parts by weight High molecular Weight polyvinyl chloride in the form of a fine white powder, specific gravity approxi- The above ingredients are mechanically mixed to form a viscous plastisol. After application between the cup handle and body, the ware is placed in an oven and held to about 350 F. for approximately one-half hour to gell the plastisol and commence cure. If not completely cured upon removal from the oven, normal cooling and storage completes curing. Where thermoplastic elastomers are used, relatively high heat distoration grades, showing no appreciable distortion below 250 F., should be employed.

A particular advantage of this invention is that it permits the use of handles of thermoset organic plastic with ceramic cup bodies. In such structures, the handles have sufficient impact strength to resist breakage of the handles, per se, and are generally lighter in weight than a corresponding mass of ceramic material, thereby re ducing breakage during stacking, while providing the desirable scratch-and-stain resistance of the ceramic cup body. Another advantage of plastic handles, preferably thermoset high-temperature resistant materials such as filled or reinforced melamines, is that they may be precisely molded so that the inner base or bases of a handle will closely conform to the curvature of the cup body, eliminating the trimming operation required with most cast ceramic handles. It should be pointed out here, however, that if the ceramic handles are carefully cast, hand-trimming may be eliminated since the thickness of the pads 14 permits a substantial discrepancy between the curvatures of the handle bases and the cup bodies.

When handles are attached to decorated cup bodies, the pattern may require fairly precise indexing of the handle with respect to the location of the pattern. One manner of accomplishing this result is shown in FIGURE 3. While the ceramic cup body is still in a green state, an indexing notch or dimple 16 is made in the cup body 10. This indentation will not interfere with the glazing or mechanical decorating of the body and may serve as an indexing point for locating the pattern of decoration on the cup body.

The inner face of the handle base 13a, in this instance a plastic handle, is molded with a raised detent 17 which fits in the notch or dimple 16 to index handle and the ware and also to space and control the thickness of the pad 14. In this particular embodiment, the handle base 13a is also provided with optional grooves 18 which tend to mechanically lock the pad 14 and base 13a together. Similar grooves in the portion to be covered by the pad 14 may be made in the cup body at the time the notch 16 is made.

This invention is not, of course, limited to the particular form of handle disclosed. FIGURE 4 shows a variation in which a handle bail 15 is provided with two bases 13' and 13" secured to the cup body by two pads 14 and 14". FIGURE 5 shows another type of handle bail 15" secured at only its upper end to the cup body by a single base 13 and pad 14".

Cups made according to this invention have handles which withstand many times the impact of conventional ceramic cups. In standard testing machines in which cup handles are struck with a swinging weight to measure the impact strength of the handles, cups made according to the invention not only exceeded the standards set for conventional ceramic cups but withstood the maximum impact the testing machine was designed to deliver.

The pads 14 may be colored by dyes or pigments and organic or inorganic fillers so that the pads closely match the color of either the handles and/ or the cup body (in case the color of these two parts are different) so that the pads are not readily detectable. In practice, however, the pads are generally distinctively colored to serve as an identification of the structure of the cup and, especially when the pads are colored with metallic pigments, to serve as a decoration.

For securing handles or knobs on other types of dishware, substantially the same procedure and means may be employed. In the case of spouted ware, such as teapots and coifee pots, the pad securing the spout to the opening in the body of the pot is, of course, shaped to conform to the periphery of the opening. This invention, therefore, may be varied from the specific embodiments and variations disclosed by those skilled in the art within the scope of the following claim.

What is claimed is:

A cup comprising a fired and glazed symmetrical curved ceramic body, a separately formed handle member comprising a bail portion and a base portion adjacent said cup body, the inner surface of said base portion being spaced from but substantially conforming to the adjacent outer curved surface of the cup body, and a pad of elastomeric material connecting and adhered to the adjacent portions of the inner surface of said handle base portion and the outer surface of said cup body, said adjacent cup body and handle base portions being provided with a mating recess and detent to index the position of said handle on said cup body and space said handle from pad is ascertained.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,742,625 =1/1930 Weckerle Iii-59 2,099,741 11/1937 Klayf 22023.86 2,281,720 5/1942 Shefts 220-2383 2,307,390 1/1943 Chew 22094 2,427,487 9/ 1947 Alexander 22023.83 2,618,959 11/1952 Watkins 154128 2,909,204 10/1959 Somerville 154-428 THERON E. CONDON, Primary Examiner.

EARLE J. DRUMMOND, FRANKLIN T. GARRETT,

Examiners. 

